At the beginning of summer last year, I went on a beautiful yoga retreat with my mum. The yoga instructor gave us each a tub of homemade moisturizer and homemade sugar scrub. I’m telling you, this stuff was heaven! I’ve tried so many moisturizers over the years but never found one that works with my very dry and agitated skin. I have eczema on my eyes and rosacea on my cheeks, and struggle to find a suitable night cream for sensitive skin. Choosing to buy only cruelty free products, I’ve tried all the Body Shop and Lush moisturizers and I was using the Philosophy renewed hope in a jar for a while. It was the best cream I had tried but it’s expensive and I always found the chemical smell off putting.

This homemade cream is so much better than all the others I’ve tried! It smells amazing and it’s solid in the jar, but melts at body temperature on your skin. It’s very oily so I use it as a night cream after I’ve cleansed my face. When I wake up after using this, my skin always looks smooth and healthy and feels incredibly moisturized! The Lavender Oil is calming for irritated skin and the Aloe Vera has a similarly soothing effect. Frankincense is also a great anti-inflammatory oil and the Vitamin E Oil is extremely hydrating, with the added benefit that it helps heal scar tissue if you have any.

My recipe is based on this wonderful blog post – I’ve switched the beeswax for a vegan alternative and changed up the essential oils slightly. The individual ingredients can be expensive but it works out cheaper in the long run if you are going to be making a lot of cosmetics or beauty products. Many of the ingredients here are repeated in my bath melt recipe, for example.

Step 1: Once you’ve measured out your Cacao Butter, Shea Butter, Coconut Oil and Candelilla Wax, add them to a double boiler together. If (like me) you don’t have such fancy kitchen apparatus, a glass bowl placed within a pan of water on medium heat works just as well. Be careful not to heat your oils too high as you only need them to melt!

Step 2: Once the oils have cooled down a little, pour them into your food processor or blender. Add the Almond Oil and blend!

Step 3: Whisk together your Sandalwood Water and Aloe Vera Gel and add this to the mixture. Blend again.

Step 4: Add at least 10 drops of essential oils to your mixture and continue to blend until the mixture is smooth and creamy, as in the above photo.

Step 4: Simply use a spoon to fill the jars with your handmade night cream! Because the cream is quite thick, if you tap it onto a hard surface, you’ll find the cream settles and you can add more to the top of the jar. This mixture will keep for a year in the fridge – I recommend labelling your jars so you don’t forget when you made it!

Of course 8 jars of cream is quite a lot, so think about making a smaller batch (divide the quantities by 8, for example) if you want to test out how it works for you. The nice thing about hand making your own face cream is that you can tailor it to your own specific skin care needs. Struggling with acne? Add lots of tea tree and clary sage oil. Bothered by redness on your face? Fill your cream with eucalyptus and chamomile oil. The fun is in the experimenting! I am so happy to have found an effective night cream for sensitive skin and I hope it works for you too.

It’s expensive initially because all the ingredients come in such large quantities! Once you’ve figured out how many pots of cream you can make, it’s definitely cheaper than buying it from the shop. I bought this all from Amazon, although I’d love to find an inexpensive independent retailer that I can buy from instead.

I actually just get mine from Amazon and sometimes H&B so I probably can’t be giving advice! I’ve tried to look into the best rated brands but the oils are so crazy expensive I could never afford them x

I really should start making my own, because I ‘just’ rub something on my face now (although I do know it isn’t animal tested). I need to figure out where to get everything that goes into it. What do you do with the leftover ingredients?

Hello there! Nice to meet you, I'm Jess. Twenty-four. Edinburgh. Tree hugger. Obsessed with Halloween. I like elephants and bell bottoms and my bunny rabbit Archie. You can usually find me in the pub, watching Buffy, hunting down vegan junk food or crocheting on the sofa.